Society of One
by thi3f
Summary: Either a chapter from my fic Runner's High or a stand-alone. Imagine if Knives were alive in a modern setting--what kind of life would create a person like him?


Society of One  
by: thi3f  
  
Disclaimer: I own none of this. None. Trigun and all affiliated characters aren't mine, never will be, never have.  
Archiving: Sure! Just ask, okay? And give me a link--I like to admire! ^^;;  
Synopsis: This is either a chapter from my ongoing series Runner's High or a stand-alone for anyone's reading   
pleasure. The Trigun gang are all set in present-day, and Knives is still Knives. This is just a little peek inside   
his head and what conditions might spawn something like him, were he to be born in a modern setting. Next: Vash's!  
Warnings: angst, torture, gratuitous use of nursery rhymes and present tense verbs.  
  
Feedback ALWAYS appreciated!  
  
ready?  
  
Onwards!  
  
  
-=Society of One=-  
  
  
  
  
  
Something within him draws me near. Every time. I don't understand why, but I understand that I do.  
  
It's akin to fascination, I think.  
  
And fascination is related to love, like I'm related to creepy Uncle Vinny or Cousin Richard--not something I admit   
to easily, but the bond between us is quite real and there even when I sleep.  
  
I swear I hear him breathing.  
  
Every morning when I get up it's a struggle, its a struggle to roll out of bed onto my floor littered with art sketches   
and poems and stagger to the bathroom. There it's even greater a struggle just to look in the mirror and not hork up   
whatever's left in my stomach at the sight inthe mirror. Fish-belly pale skin, dark rings under my eyes as big as hula   
hoops, a short spiked mass of hyper-blonde hair and blue eyes that were once compared to shards of broken glass. That's  
what I feel like on this inside--a bag of broken glass.   
  
Yes, this is me: Knives.  
  
Cool nickname, huh? I thought of it pretty much by myself when I was young and still full of moronic vim and vigour   
about my upcoming life. "Vim and vigour" is what my mom used to say. She always said I was so full of it, so inquisitive  
of God-near *everything*. Even into the lives of characters in fairy tales and nursery rhymes. Why did Jack and Jill go  
up that hill, anyway? And how did five-and-twenty blackbirds get caught to be put in that pie? Why did the dish run   
away with the spoon? Why not the platter? Or the fine china? I even checked into the life of the spider in the song.  
  
Oh, come on, you know what I'm talking about, don't you?  
  
  
Itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout  
Down came the rain and washed the spider out.  
Out came the sun and dried up all the rain,  
And the itsy bitsy spider went up the spout again.  
  
  
I used to admire the tiny arachnid. Brave little trouper, getting back in the game like that. That spider fueled my   
ambitions up until the point wher I was almost nine. I wanted to *be* that spider. Of course, all little bubbles of soap  
pop just as easily as do the bubble of fancy, and I was shown just how wrong I was.   
  
Spiders were *bad*.  
  
I am a spider.  
  
Brush my teeth now, and try not to think of grade school--it just makes everything now seem dark and dim. Grungy. Used.   
Surreal. I look down to my hand resting on the ceramic countertop and notice that the black nail polish on my thumbnail   
is cracking and peeling. I bring it up to my mouth and bite gently down on the tiny curl, strip away from my nail with a   
gentle tug. I'll repaint it later, probably during Socials; the most boring and inane class ever created. Socials   
reflectects the study of society. Society reflects the union of people with different goals to a unified objective of one   
thing: *peace*.  
  
It makes me laugh with the sharp, black tang of nail polish on my tongue at the very thought. There is no peace. There   
is no society. Mom ran away from dad and left me here alone to die, to freeze, to be washed down and away.  
  
Society is a joke.  
  
My laughter grows, echoing off the tiled bathroom stall and the dingy white walls. It rebounds, leaping upon me. My   
laughter at society is laughter at myself, a realisation of just how pitiful I, Knives, am. I am alone here in this tiny   
bathroom in some mnolith of a cement and rain-washed steel city. We're all different. Unity? Hah. I am my own society, a   
society of one.  
  
My father cracks the flimsy bathroom door with his knuckles, bellows at me to stop my cackling. I quiet down immediately   
and begin to pull a brush through the scraggly blonde mess on top of my head. He doesn't mean all that much to me--I   
realised a long time ago that we are different from one another. His screw ups aren't my screw ups, and that helps me stay   
sane, even when he yells like that, or cracks me across the mouth. But still, it's hard when you can feel something lurking   
inside your chest to reach up and grab your brain, twist it around and around.  
  
There is a monster in my chest.  
  
Each day is a struggle to keep it contained and happy. Constant sacrifice is what it demands. My pleasure, my pain,   
the very breath I draw it *demands*.  
  
My breathing echoes now, just like the laughter of a few moments before.  
  
But...For a second I thought I heard another person's breath.  
  
Could it be? It couldn't be him, not here, not *possible!* Why would he ever want to join me down here? Join me in my   
society of one? The other breath is gone for now, but for a moment I knew it had been there, as *his* breath had been   
there as I slept. Him and me, we both have the same goal, really, so what does that make us? I want peace, but not the   
same kind he does. No matter. We share the same heading on our compasses. We're a *society*, him and me. A society.  
  
A society of two. 


End file.
